Moving towards a full-fledged business school

Moving towards
a full-fledged business school

Like a caterpillar preparing to emerge into the world as a radiant butterfly, Universiti Putra Malaysia’s Graduate School of Management is preparing to commence its transformation into an entity that not only propagates but also actualises human governance on the education and industry stage. The need to fulfill a niche in the world of business education has created emergent qualities within GSM under the direction of Professor Arfah Salleh, the dean. “We hope to run our business school as a not-for-proit foundation,” reveals Professor Arfah. “We intend for this foundation to have autonomy within UPM, similar to the Harvard Business School that exists within its own grounds and serves its own student community directly while still operating under the Harvard University banner.”

The idea for a business school unfettered by the direction and other strategic issues that are meant for the university as a whole, allowing it to focus primarily on its object — the provision of world quality business education steeped in ethics and spiritual principles objective is a worthy one, and one that Professsor Arfah hopes to pursue with the re-creation of GSM.

“We will still be the provider for postgraduate business education in UPM,” Professor Arfah assures. “But this transformation will allow us to do away with several restrictions that have been constraints on performance. Our directors, both university academics and industry players, have provided us with well rounded input for the creation of the ideal business school.”

Ongoing plans

“What this business school will be is an actualisation of our philosophies — the focus on human governance and treating people as human beings rather than resources,” emphasises Professor Arfah. “We are fully dedicated to giving our best to this endeavour, and we realise that charting new territories in

Malaysian business education will not be a simple task.”

As the dean, Professor Arfah has faced several challenges in implementing a holistic and ethical idea of business education. Nevertheless, she has overcome many of them, as her team is completely behind her in reaching out to students with this concept. At first, the dean says, they felt alone with their ideas. “ But eventually we earned respect and now we have supporters in companies like TNB and UEM, whilst also preparing to sign MOUs with other companies who have recognised the value of what we have to offer,” maintains Professor Arfah. Corporations have approached GSM to carry out executive development programmes and leadership training based on their principles, giving it a chance to make its presence felt in the industry. “Changing mindsets to favour human governance over corporate governance will not occur overnight,” Professor Arfah concedes. “But over the years, we hope to be able to train and educate enough managers and executives to effect a positive change. We hope the time will come when business leaders realise that with human governance, corporate governance will ensue.” The current curriculum is also being looked into, to ensure that it best serves the principles that Professor Arfah wishes to impart to postgraduate students. Even the MBA and DBA will be reviewed and streamlined for better effectiveness. What is most important for a business school, especially one that provides postgraduate education, is to remain relevant to the business community that it serves. This aspect is not about divorcing the school wholly from academia, but instead about retuning the focus of the school. Professor Arfah intends for the school to be closely linked to the industry, establishing itself as trusted and competent in providing what the corporations need. The programmes offered are to be constantly evolving with the times, and reviewed regularly for relevance.

A novel approach

“Subscribing to the principle of human governance also means that GSM needs to ensure that what is being taught in the programmes is useful to the graduates when they leave for the work place. And for that, we want corporations to tell us what they want, defne it down to the very core of what they need,” says Professor Arfah. “There would be the technical skills, which would work together with human governance — the ethics and leadership in humans. We intend to work the core human skills and the technical skills in tandem.” Core skills are what is currently known as soft skills, communication and the like, which is unusual because these skills are core to the individual human rather than as over-and above soft additions. It is these skills that are the driving force behind any business in linking the human relationships to keep the company a float and enable people to use their technical skills effectively. Qualities such as accountability, leadership, ethical principles and communication skills all form the core of a good business practitioner. These qualities are ones that Professor Arfah hopes will be integrated into students of the business school. One day, she says, they hope businesses no longer need CSR, because by then leaders would understand that it is not about taking too much and then attempting to compensate, but taking only what you need in the first place and being conscious of the need to look after the wellbeing of human throughout the business’ life-cycle rather than only after making profit.

Realising the principles of human governance

The school is not intended to be governed based solely on the criteria for achieving high rank amongst universities in terms of research output and number of publications. Rather, the wholesome aspect of the school and its dedication to its principles is expected to cultivate a reputation within the industry, where most of the students will originate from. “There will always be a place for research, because we need the findings to evolve,” Professor Arfah accurately points out. “For us, there has to be a synergy between research that is used for solving problems and the relevance that it has to the industry.” Professor Arfah is not alone in her method of thinking. Recently a couple of international academic institutions and consultants had exchanged communication with GSM discussing aspects of human governance and industrial relevance as the mainstays of a competent business school. “Right now we are imploring people in the industry, Look, we are here, and we want to be relevant,” Professor Arfah says. “It is up to them to accept our offer. If they do not open the door, then Malaysia will be as it is now, with a wall separating the academia and the corporate world. The industry calls in consultants to fix immediate problems, but what we are offering is the potential for long-term solutions through training and research capabilities. What we want in the end is for the culture of human governance to be alive in organisations.” And as manifestation of that desire, GSM has recently signed an MoU with MAICSA to reinforce their current cooperation in championing good governance practices among Malaysia’s corporate professionals. According to Professor Arfah, with human governance made the underpinning philosophy, the unique proposition of the GSM Corporate Governance MBA is that the programme helps develop a more teleological and holistic mind-set of students as future cosecs. Through this collaboration, the graduates will be automatically eligible to be admitted as Graduates MAICSA, paving the way forward for them to become Associate and Fellow members of MAICSA.

New Straits Times, | Saturday | October 15, 2011

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Human Governance: To thy own self be true…

Human Governance: To thy own self be true…

Prof. Arfah Salleh

Dean, Graduate School of Management

UPM

In his play “Hamlet”, as in his other plays, Shakespeare interjects his wise pronouncements on living a proper life. "To thine own self be true" is one of his kernels of wisdom.  It comes from the character in “Hamlet” – Polonius. It is Polonius's last advice to his son Laertes, as he prepares the latter for life abroad in Paris.  Polonius’s full exhortation is:

This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.

As Shakespeare - through the character of Polonius - sees it, being true to one’s conscience and not indulging in dubious and other intemperate practices such as ‘cooking the books’ and cheating (in the context of business)  are  "false" to the self.  By "true" Shakespeare means "loyal to your own conscience and spiritual values." Be honest and safeguard your integrity first, he warns, and that way, we shall be in a position to safeguard the interests others.

There is wisdom in Polonius’s advice.  That wisdom also is reflected in the concept of human governance that this School nurtures among its students and industry.  Human governance is about leading from the inside out.  It requires one to be true to one’s upbringing and spiritual values. Only then can we be in a position to have the locus to influence the lives of others and cause them no harm.  This is all about walking the talk and leadership by example. 

Integrity is everything. As a former US senator, Alan Simpson once said, “If you have integrity, nothing else matters; if you don’t have integrity nothing else matters.” Integrity is sacrosanct. It is very much a part of human governance as it is being true to oneself.  Integrity is about doing things right even when no one is watching.

That reminds me of a friend who lately knocked his car into someone else’s car – an Alphard. While seeking to maneouver his car into a parking lot, he had knocked the car parked adjacent. He would not have knocked it if he had not been in a hurry to park. As always considerate of others, he wanted to park quickly after the car that was parked there, was vacating the lot so that he would not hold up the traffic behind him; which he would if he had taken his time to carefully park.

And so, the unfortunate thing happened. He had knocked the back bumper of the car parked adjacent. What would he do now? What would we do in such a spot? The car owner was not there to witness the accident. They were a few who came out of the shops along the road upon hearing the thud from the knock on the bumper. But they quickly lost interest and went back to doing whatever they were doing.  They did not want to get involved.

This friend of mine is a God-fearing man who is ever conscious of God watching our every thought, word and action (not from a distance as one song would have us believe).   He did the decent thing that one who is ruled by human governance would do. He left a note under the wiper of the car with his name and mobile number for the car owner to call him. And he settled the matter with the car owner subsequently. What he did was true to his conscience: to thy own self be true and, it must follow as night the day, thou canst not be false to any man. 

Human governance reflects that principle as it exhorts us to live true to our conscience and spiritual beliefs, even when no one is watching us. Of course, God is watching us.  And God’s retribution can sometimes be swift.    

There is a Malay saying: Apa yang ditanam itulah yang dituai; apa yang disemai itulah yang dipetik.  The English equivalent will be: What you sow is what you will reap.  If you sow goodness, goodness will come back to you in good measure, pressed down and well shaken, and flowing over!  Likewise, evil recoils unto the evil doer. For, with the same measure that we mete out to others, by that same measure will it be meted out to us again.

So, in our professional lives, as in our personal lives, let us sow the seeds of good governance so that we shall be true to ourselves and shall not do harm to others.

19^th October 2011

GSM-UPM

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The Mind of the Future

 

The Mind of the Future

Arfah Salleh

Professor of Human Governance

Dean of the Graduate School of Management

Universiti Putra Malaysia

Howard Gardner in his book “Five Minds of the Future” (Harvard Business School Press, 2006) talks of the five minds that are essential for anyone to measure up to what is expected of him or her, as well as to deal with what cannot be anticipated.  Without these minds, Gardner considers a person would be at the mercy of forces that he or she could not understand, let alone control.  “Our survival as a planet,” he writes, “may depend on the cultivation of this pentad of mental dispositions.”

His list of the five minds of the future is an important one to help us face the issues of the day.  And, I consider that the fifth mind – the ethical mind – is indispensible for a leader, in a world where leaders have succumbed to the pursuit of the bottom-line regardless of its impact on man, society and the environment.

The five minds Gardner believes that we need are:

1.      The disciplined mind is schooled in subjects such as history, science and arts. Notwithstanding, rather than being a jack of all trades, it is crucial to become an expert at one profession to become a productive worker in society or master a scholarly disciple.  Disciplines such as science, management, economics or law provide a decent livelihood for those who have mastered them. They provide a frame wherein which thinking is done. The problem arises when you only use your disciplined mind to think about the whole world. Gardner gives an example of a lawyer using his legal discipline and legal arguments in situations involving the family, classroom, basketball court, boardroom or even the bedroom!

2.      The synthesising mind collects and puts together information from varied sources. It melds all the information collected to solve a problem.  Without synthesising capabilities, an individual would be overwhelmed by the sheer volume of information that he or she would be unable to make the right decisions. We desperately need this kind of mind especially when there is so much information available today.  Indeed, Gardner considers this mind to be the most important mind for the 21^st century.  

3.      The creating mind generates new ideas. It asks questions to arrive at new solutions for a problem.  The synthesis of the disparate information done by the mind informs the creating mind in generating these new answers.  The creating mind goes beyond what is known. Its ‘out of the box’ thinking is one step ahead of the ‘in the box’ thinking of computers. This mind focuses on new questions, new methods, new combinations of information.  The creating mind’s ability to think beyond rules enables it offer fresh ideas and insights. Like Thomas Elva Edison who invented the light bulb after 9,999 attempts or Einstein’s questioning that resulted in the development of the theory of relativity, the creating mind is never satisfied. It does not quit until an answer is obtained. 

The future beckons for people who can do things that machines cannot yet do. Individuals without creating capacities stand at risk of being replaced by computers. So, the capacity to ask a good question, rather than getting the right answer from a machine, is of greater premium.

4.      The respectful mind honours diversity. It celebrates differences among people. It tries to understand others so that it can work effectively with them.  The response to differences is, at the very minimum, tolerance. Respect is the ultimate response. People can tell quickly if they are in an organisation in which genuine respect is practised. 

Don Juan once said, “No man is an island.” Man is a gregarious being. As a social creature, he or she has to interact daily with those who come into his or her life.  As such, to live peaceably with one another, this mind is essential.   As they say, we give respect to take respect and that respect must be earned, not demanded. We earn this respect by treating others with the same measure of respect that we want others to accord us.  Individuals without respect will not be worthy of respect by others and this would make the workplace intolerable.

5.      The ethical mind thinks about justice: distributive justice in the distribution of wealth and rewards according to one’s just desert.  It goes beyond self-interest and seeks to improve the interest of all.  It is about procedural justice which offers a level playing field for all to be heard and fair procedures in place in the allocation of distributive justice

Of these five minds, what resonates the most in me is the ethical mind and its close companion - the respecting mind. The ethical mind is so in tune with the philosophy of human governance that the Graduate School advocates as the cornerstone for nurturing leaders. Ethics and morality, the components of human governance, are particularly at a premium in the world today. It would be even more so in the future as leaders face complex issues that impinge on the legality and ethics of their courses of action.  Individuals without ethics would result in a world without decent workers and responsible citizens.  Surely, none of us would want to live in such a wretched world!

Human governance - as is the ethical mind - is about good work ethics. It is about going the extra mile even though we do not have an accountability to do so; only comforted in the belief that God is watching us.  The ethical mind better serves the individual through the inculcation of ethics, integrity and universal core values that govern human behaviour.  With the proper mindset and behaviour that are underpinned by core human values many of the mismanagement that takes place in businesses today can be averted. 

Human leaders, like the ethical mind, are critical to inspiring and energizing others.  It is about leading from the inside out.  Such leadership is based on core religious or spiritual values that are universal.  Human leaders are those who lead and facilitate problem-solving in such manner that opportunities and solutions emerge quickly thereafter or are quickly seized upon emergence.  Human leaders make things happen. Human leaders are equally important in growing other leaders with the same mindset and philosophy. It is akin developing a leadership brand founded upon the philosophy of human governance.     

Human governance is about ethics in action.  Actions are matters of the heart – not the kind that are ruled by emotions!  Rather, these are actions that emanate from a clean and clear conscience that is in sync with universal values of justice, integrity, transparency and accountability – to mention a few.  Abiding by the law is another hallmark of human governance.  Ethical accounting in accordance with standard accounting practices – not the ‘creative’ kind indulged by crooked CEOs – is a characteristic of human governance as it is a manifestation of Gardner’s ethical mind. 

Disciplines, syntheses and creativity can be put to all kinds of ends, including wicked ones.  However, such perversions are much less likely if we had also cultivated a sense of respect and an ethical orientation in all that we do. 

According to Gardner, ethics involves an additional step of abstraction. The ethical mind works in a more abstract way, contemplating how it can contribute to improving society.  Human governance too is about working for the common good of society. In the context of business, it is about promoting sustainable businesses that do not harm the environment while not forgetting the long-term success of the business. Apart from the immediate concerns of profit maximization and increasing shareholder wealth, the true purpose of business is to promote the welfare of society – a cornerstone of human governance.  The ethical mind for businesses therefore is that they foster the common good and promote shared value where both the business and society benefit from business operations.    Financial considerations must not override the principles of human governance. 

We need to fashion an education that will produce individuals who are disciplined, able to synthesise, are creative, respectful and, more importantly, behave ethically according to the dictates of human governance.

The Graduate School of Management dedicates itself to making a contribution in this regard.

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